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VIII
WHEN YOU MOVE...
CHAPTER 99
THE MORNING OF THE SURGERY.
Rhyme, trailed by Sachs and Thom, wheeled fast down the hospital corridor to the Surgical Procedures waiting room where the patients could visit with their friends and family until they were whisked off for the knife.
"I hate hospitals," Sachs said.
"Really? Why?" Rhyme found himself in quite a good mood. "The staff can be sooo charming, the food sooo good. The latest magazines. And all the miracles of modern medicine," Rhyme proclaimed. "If you'll forgive the alliteration."
Sachs gave a brief laugh.
They'd waited only five minutes when the doctor strode into the room and shook all their hands, carefully noting Rhyme's articulating right arm and digits. "Good," he said. "That is very good."
"I do my best."
The doctor explained what they all knew at this point: that the surgery should take three hours, possibly a little longer. The stay in the recovery room could be expected to last an hour or so. The surgeon would come find them here, though, right after the operation was completed to tell them how it had gone.
Exuding confidence, the man smiled and headed off to gown and scrub.
The pre-op nurse, a pretty African American woman in puppy-decorated scrubs, arrived and introduced herself, smiling broadly. It's a scary thing, to be knocked out and cut open then put back together. Some medicos didn't appreciate the trauma but this woman did and kept everyone at ease. Finally she asked, "Ready?"
Amelia Sachs leaned over and kissed Rhyme on the mouth. She rose and, limping, accompanied the nurse down the hall.
He called, "We'll be in the recovery room when you wake up."
She turned back. "Don't be crazy, Rhyme. Go back home. Solve a case or something."
"We'll be in the recovery room," he repeated, as the door swung shut and she disappeared.
After a moment of silence Rhyme said to Thom, "You don't happen to have one of those miniatures of whiskey, do you? From the flight to Nassau."
He'd insisted the aide smuggle some scotch on board, though he'd learned that in first class you get as much liquor as you like--or, more accurately, as much as your caregiver is willing to let you have.
"No, and I wouldn't give you any if I did have some. It's nine in the morning."
Rhyme scowled.
He looked once more at the doors through which Sachs had vanished.
We don't want to lose her; she's too good. But the department can't keep her if she insists on being in the field...
Yes, he'd had a conversation with Sachs, as Bill Myers had insisted.
Though the message was a bit different from what the captain had wanted.
Neither a desk job at the NYPD and early retirement and security consulting were options for Amelia Sachs. There was only one solution to avoid those nightmares. Rhyme had contacted Dr. Vic Barrington and gotten the name of the best surgeon in the city specializing in treating severe arthritis.
The man had said he might be able to help; Rhyme's conversation with Sachs on Saturday outside NIOS headquarters was about the possibility of her undergoing a procedure to improve the situation...and keeping her in the field. Not desking her, to use one of Myers's more pernicious verbs.
Because she wasn't afflicted with rheumatoid arthritis--an immune system malady that affects all the joints--but more common osteoarthritis, she was young enough so that a procedure in her hip and knee could give her a dozen years or more of normal life before a joint replacement would be required.
She'd debated and finally agreed.
In the waiting room now, Rhyme was looking around at the ten or so others here, the couples, the solitary men or women, the families. Some motionless, some lost in intense dialogue not quite discernible, some jittery, some engaging in rituals of distraction: stirring coffee, opening crisp wrappers of snack food, studying limp magazines, texting or playing video games on phones.
